Finished riveting the right bottom inboard wing skin - 5 hours

Slow and steady. Finished the inboard bottom wing skin on the right wing.

Started riveting the Right Inbard bottom wing skin - 7 hours

With having the "Feel" of the wing riveting dialed in. I started in on the right wing (bottom, inboard) skin. I was eager to get this done as its a bit tricky. I'm very much stiff and sore from all the contortion needed to reach all the rivets.

For some reason I found the right side, just a bit more tricky then the left.

One of the items that I needed to do was to use some proseal on a bent rib flange. I had bent this flange when clecoing the skin on earlier.

EDIT - Tip...This method doesn't work. The proseal doesn't hold well, and trying to reach in after to re-apply proseal or epoxy just makes a giant mess. The best method I found was to use a couple of layers of cardboard on the bucking bar when you go to set the rivet. The unset rivet pokes through the cardboard and allows the flange to press tight back to the mating surfaces. When you shoot the rivet. it's perfect!

Modifying the aileron stiffner - 1.5 hours

One of the items that I had discovered was that the aileron stiffener Van's provides in a service bulletin interferes with the rivets in two places on the rear spar. I had sent Van's an email asking if it was possible to file down the interfering part to allow access for a MK-319 rivet. In my particular instance they agreed with my workaround. So i went to work with the files to make the necessary space.

More riveting bottom left inboard wing skin - 4 hours

Slowly i've worked my way riveting. All along the rear spar for one bay, then up one rib towards the spar, then along the spar to the next rib. Then repeat. Ive used a string to hold up the skin to allow me to reach in. By the end of the evening I was done the skin. Took me much longer then it seems to take everyone else, but ultimately I am very happy with the results. 

Riveting Bottom Left inboard wing skin - 7 hours

Thankfully its a holiday today so I managed to put in a good day of riveting. As I've worked my way from the trailing edge to the leading edge of the skin on the root end of the wing. I was careful to position the bar so that it allowed me to set the new rivets on the spar flange, but not so far forward that it has interfered with previously set rivets. The trick I used was to tape a large popsicle stick to the bottom of the bucking bar and the stick is cut to length so that it acts like a position stop for the bar. I slide the bar up till the popsicle stick touches the spar...and the bar is set far back enough to set the new rivet.

I continued to rivet in the Vans suggested manner of the "L" shape. Its slow work as I checked each and every rivet.


I managed to set all the rivets in the 4 ribs

Started riveting bottom wing skins - 8 hours

I woke up early and prep'd the inboard bottom wings skins for priming. I wiped first with wax/grease remover, then MEK then washed with clean-brite. After I wiped again with clean water, then final MEK wipe. It sounds like a very lengthy process but is sounds worse than it is. It's quite quick and the aluminum is nice and clean. I sprayed both inboard skins with self-etching primer and let them sit out side to dry for a number of hours. Later in the afternoon, I began to install the nutplates on the wing skins. Took a little head scratching to figure out the best method to get the nutplates set. I ended up back riveting them a little bit using my small tungsten bar. That was enough to ensure it set tight to the skin. I went back after and finished each rivet to the appropriate size with the squeezer.



I was now ready to begin riveting. Using the exact technique described in the manual. I laid the right wing upside down on the table and clecoed the entire wing skin onto the wing. Once I was happy with the fit, I removed all clecos with the exception of those on the rear spar. I began to rivet all of the holes along the rear spar working from the 4th rib to the 1st root rib. Accessibility at this point was still ok.

I found an easy way to work in the tight space was to loosely tape the bucking bar to my finger. This would allow me to get my hand in the tight spots without dropping the bucking bar.

The trademark arm torture....everyone must join this club.


I don't look very flattering....But it works. An LED headlamp works so good for viewing rivets with the inspection mirror. I figured out later that taking pictures with the iphone and then reviewing them makes for an extremely effective way of viewing hard to see rivets.

I slowly riveted the wing skin along each rib #1 thru #3 working forward from the rear spar to the front spar. I am trying to work in that "L" shape pattern that the manual describes. Once I got enough rivets in...I laid the wing skin down completely on the wing and celco'd. I then continued riveting ribs #1 thru #3 all from the root access holes. Its a little tricky to get the bar in there....its slow progress, but going way better than I thought it was going to be.

Prepped bottom wing skins for priming - 7 hours

Very long day today working on the wing skins. I began filing all the edges on the skins down to remove the shear marks. Next I rounded all the 90 deg corners. Then I 3M'd the edges so they were smooth as silk. Next I deburred all of the holes, both sides. Once that was done, I then made/filed the scarf joint on the two skins that overlap. Next I used the edge rolling tool to put a nice edge on the leading edge of the skins, and the edge that overlaps the other wing skin. Next step I countersunk the holes for the rivets that hold the access plate nutplates on. Last step of all was to dimple the holes.

Very long and tedious day in the garage....but its done.